For most people it started early in their life. For some, the addiction didn’t come until they were in high school or perhaps even later in life. It will keep you up at night and sometimes through the early morning hours. The disappointment of defeat or the glory of victory goes hand in hand in this virtual world. You can be anybody or anywhere you want to be. You can travel to France in the 1600’s or you can go to planets in the farthest of galaxies. Anything and everything are in the realm of possibility.

Hi, my name is Brian and I’m addicted to video games. And I don’t ever want to give it up.

My story begins when I was in the 5th grade. I can’t remember when we got it but I can remember how much time and fun I had with it: The Nintendo NES. I will give you my top five games played and would play if I had one today: Contra, Super Mario Bros., Paper boy, Excitebike, Duck Hunt. This system provided the game groundwork for nearly thirty years. I’m enjoying theses same story lines and characters to this day.

Growing up with the NES did more than pass the time on a slow Saturday; it provided my two brothers and me a platform to settle our disagreements without the usual aggression and physical contact. Although, playing the system also caused many other fights. There were many times when my Mother would have to unplug the console and take it away from us. Or she would use it as a bargaining chip to get her three sons to do their chores. And more often than not it worked.

There were many days punching in the Konami code and seeing who could have the most kills or how far could we get as a team in, Contra. Some days were spent challenging each other in, Duck Hunt but usually that ended in a fight because one of us would slide to close to the screen. Those days unfortunately came to an end when the NES over heated and never worked again. It didn’t matter how hard we blew into the cartridges or how hard we slammed them in there; the beast would not wake up.

It didn’t matter. The code was awoken inside of me and my life would never be the same. There wouldn’t be a house or apartment that didn’t have a console in it. I didn’t care if I had to ride a Huffy bike and wear hand-me-down clothes just as long as a video game station was in the living room.